Saturday and Sunday are both spent in Korea. On Saturday, Hannah goes to the gym with trainer Park Hyun and she has acting class and she also helps out to clean up in their apartment and give their pets a bath, and the highlight of her day is to meet Kyung Ho – he got very happy over the car she had bought him for his birthday (an early present). On Sunday she also goes to the gym in the morning, and then spends a few hours at a photo shoot along with Maria. They are filming for Life of Pieces Season 4 today, mostly for Julia’s solo debut music video filming that started since early morning, but also some at the photo shoot. Both Carolina and Emelia visit Julia’s set for support too, as they don’t do anything else.

While the ladies are back in Tokyo on Monday, starting to film for the drama, Julia is still in Korea to finish filming her music video. But that doesn’t stop the fun on set.

Maria’s laughter is echoing in the corridor where the staff is standing at the end, ready to film and in the middle of her laughter, Hannah starts to laugh too. But they can’t be seen from where the staff is standing. Further away in the corridor where the cameras are focused on to film, Maria peeks out from around the corner.

“What should I sing? I forgot,” she is giggling in Japanese and apologizes to the staff when a woman comes up with the script to her. Hannah standing around the corner is still giggling and fooling around with Maria when she goes back too, all until the director calls out for attention and it gets quiet.

They start to film the scene with Maria and Hannah walking around the corner slowly dressed in Japanese school uniforms, talking in low voices while walking towards the staff and the cameras. They are in matching blazer and skirt, wearing knee-high socks. School uniforms are always cute. Hannah start so smile when Maria excitedly sings a song in Japanese, both of them excited for something while heading towards the classroom.

“And cut!” the director calls out in Japanese and Hannah starts to laugh right away. She had been holding it in, waiting for them to finish the scene until she could burst out laughing.

They have to re-do the scene one more time before the director says it is done and the two girls loudly cheers and says they will go eat now when they are taking a break. They are constantly polite to the staff, though the girls are starving and rush out as fast as they can, laughing when storming down the stairs together. 5 Pieces are filming the drama at a school today, and since the weather is shockingly great with a hot sun, everyone is eating lunch outside. A tent has been prepared with food for the staff and cast to take when they have the time to eat, so when Hannah and Maria comes running out from the school they can see Carolina and Emelia already finished with their lunch.

“How did it go?” Manager Song asks in Japanese when the two girls come over to their table outside. He has eaten lunch two times already, and now he has been sitting and making sure Carolina doesn’t eat for two as well.

“They enjoyed my singing,” Maria brightly answers, doing well by answering in Japanese. She laughs when taking a seat, and then complains as she has to go get her food first. “Baby! Get me some too!”

“Get your own!” Hannah laughs over her shoulder. She keeps smiling when walking up to the table to see what they have, greeting a staff who is there too.

It is the sixth day filming the drama, and everyone seems to get along well. All the staff are Japanese, and Hannah likes how their managers keep talking in Japanese to the girls too. Even from the food table she can hear Emelia laughing at Carolina when they are practicing for the next scene.

Out of absolutely nowhere, Manager Lee is suddenly standing next to Hannah. Her eyes widens when looking up at him, doing that instead of screaming over his sudden appearance. He is looking at the table and she knows exactly what he is doing; the same thing he has done for a week – seeing what food she takes, and makes sure she takes enough. Everyone is taking her gaining-weight-schedule seriously. It isn’t much telling her what she can’t eat that they usually do; it is more eat-more-than-that. Which is annoying, so the moment Hannah melts in the reason to her manager’s sudden appearance, she turns her back against him.

The girl takes the food she wants to eat and knows she can finish up before she takes a drink to go take a seat with the others. The tables taken out are either made of wood or white plastic, and the one 5 Pieces is sitting around today is of plastic. The chairs are of plastic too. Hannah sits down next to Emelia, listening to her saying her line for the next scene; still practicing the script.

“You didn’t get anything for me?” Maria interrupts, her eyes looking sadly at Hannah and her food.

“I told you no…”

Maria is still leaning back in her seat and turns to Carolina sitting next to her. “Go get me food.”

“Go get your own food, Maria,” Manager Song laughs at the lazy leader. Carolina is too busy reading the script to even hear the leader.

With Hannah eating, Emelia and Carolina going through the script and Manager Song telling Maria to go get her own food, Maria eventually go get the food by herself. She doesn’t seem to have anything against it once she is standing over there by the table as she is busy talking to some others in Japanese. Hannah is just smiling while eating. She learned Japanese back in 2009 when she was in a drama, learning it much faster than any other language, and now when 5 Pieces have been filming for a drama for a week (reading the script for a longer period), you can hear that all of them are improving. Acting improves your language, Hannah thinks happily. When she was in the Korean drama last year, Hannah thought her Korean improved a lot too, so maybe that is what they should do when learning a new language.

5 Pieces Japanese mini-drama will be 6 episodes long. It is about five girls who are transferred to a new school due to bad behaviour (they always get in fights), and though they have such bad behaviour they still have good hearts. It will be some romance and fights, this typical high school drama. 5 Pieces are fans of the drama Gokusen, so when they last year started to plan a drama in Japan, the girls suggested that kind of genre and the producers liked it as it kind of matches 5 Pieces usual image. Cute and sweet girls on the inside but they are tough and charismatic on the outside. And each lady has her own character that they for a week now have loved to act out when filming. As the youngest, Hannah is the innocent and cute among them. They can’t get rid of her image that she has here in Japan so easily. None in the production team wanted to change her from that image. It doesn’t matter that Hannah had a charismatic fighting-character in the drama she is known for in Japan; she still somehow got stuck with the cute image. She doesn’t complain; any character is welcomed for her when it comes to acting. And in Japanese, it isn’t so difficult to be cute.

The girls sit there, eat and go through the next scene together. The director comes to talk to them about the scene too when he is done eating, saying what time they should be up in the classroom and a few other things.

Being done eating they just sit there and enjoy the weather when a voice is heard greeting people, a new arrival. At first thought they all think it could be Julia – yes, they do miss the piece that isn’t present – but it is not the voice of a girl, and it is heard to be two voices.

Emelia raises her hand up in the air, stretching on her in her seat when seeing the two new arrived actors come over and everyone around the table looks at those two. It is Takaki Yuya and Yamada Ryosuke from the Japanese boy-group Hey! Say! JUMP, both of them wearing the school uniform for boys, who walk up to their table while politely greeting the girls who politely greet them back. Takaki is two years older than the ladies while Yamada is a year younger, and both of them are starring in the drama as love-interest for two of the ladies. Takaki plays the bad boy from the same class the ladies are in (like the class’ leader) while Yamada plays the younger student who gets a crush on Julia. Takaki has filmed with them the most so far because he is in the same class when filming and this is a school drama; his character is annoyed over the five transferred students.

“Have you eaten?” Emelia asks them.

“Yes. We ate before we came here,” Takaki answers and then smiles mischievous. “Are you ready to act out a fight with me now?”

Emelia met them both last year during her solo activities, so she has actually had Takaki’s cell phone number even if they have never contacted each other. Yamada has actually confessed on TV once that he is a fan of Hannah’s, though she has no idea about it. It was fun when trying to scout Japanese actors for this mini drama, because whoever they asked, they would get a response that it would be an honour to work with 5 Pieces. Some couldn’t, while others could, and a few even changed their schedule to be able to film this drama with 5 Pieces.

 

It takes a few more hours before Julia comes, and just like the other ladies have been the whole day, Julia won’t stop laughing. Maybe she just laughs over the overwhelming welcoming she gets from the ladies with hugs and attention – she didn’t get this much attention after their vacation last week, when they hadn’t seen each other for five days, and she saw these ladies just yesterday. It is still so typical 5 Pieces.

“How was it then? How did it go?” Hannah is curious to know when she is done filming her scene with Yamada and she comes to the van where Julia is waiting to film. The van is the only escape for the ladies if they want to be left alone during the breaks of the filming in Tokyo, though that never works because someone always comes there too. Hannah sits down the wrong way on the passenger seat to look at Julia sitting in the back to hide from the sun, excited to hear about Julia’s very first own music video filming.

Julia smiles in the back, for a moment forgetting that her short hair is styled when trying to take her fingers through it.

“It was so fun! You should have visited. Yuri and I were pulling pranks on the dancers like … all the time – she even taught me something new that I am planning to pull on Emelia. She deserved it after everything she does on us. Oh, I have to show you the pictures we took,” Julia excitedly tells before easily finding her cell phone. It is not difficult to find her most recent pictures and she gives the cell phone to Hannah for her to go through them on her own. “Emelia took more when she came by, with her system camera. And they say that the teaser will be released already on Wednesday, and that is when then the real countdown begins – the debut stage is June 8, on Music Core. Yuri has her concert that day, so we will pre-record it the day before. Can you believe that I’m making my solo debut? I can believe it, but I’m not sure how to feel or express it… Did it feel like this for you too?”

Hannah shrugs her shoulders, not remembering anything else but the nervousness for her solo debut three years ago. She remembers performing with Alexander (former U-Kiss member), and it makes her smile over how happy they both were to perform a song together. It was a long time ago she saw him… He did comment on her tweet she wrote about Eurovision, saying their performance were dazzling, and they do text at times, but she hasn’t seen him in forever.

Julia is still talking and Hannah smiles wider at it, nodding as she starts to listen again and going through the pictures.

“This one is fun,” Hannah chuckles and shows the last picture to Julia when giving back the cell phone.

She smiles too, nodding when putting away the cell phone. “The last picture… we decided to fool around. Yuri took the picture, so she sent it to me.” Julia sighs when looking out the window, seeing the school yard and staff who aren’t at the moment working inside just resting outside or moving equipment. “Who is filming now?”

“Emelia and Takaki,” Hannah answers and throws off her shoes to be able to sit down tailor, closing the door to lean her back against it. “I watched them practice their scene… She is still awkward.”

Julia shifts position too, moving someone’s blanket and stretching out leg legs in the middle. “You aren’t awkward in front of the cameras. It’s actually surprising. You laugh the most when the cameras aren’t rolling, but it is like a switch when we are filming.”

“Acting,” Hannah giggles shyly. “But it’s fun, right?”

“We should do it more often,” Julia nods in agreement. “We could do a Korean version – I like my character in this one, so I want to keep it. Oh no, Oppa is coming…”

They are interrupted by Manager Song who opens the slide-door to see who is in there. “Good,” he says when seeing them both and he points over at the school building with his thumb, “Second floor, now.”

Julia rolls her eyes at the manager speaking Japanese, but she and Hannah get out of the van and walks with him inside the school to get ready for their next scene.

 

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“Have you seen it? Have you, have you, have you? It’s HILARIOUS! Hannah, you are so cute! And you, you… you are just weird,” Maria laughs, pointing at Carolina at the end before showing the tablet in her hands to the ladies looking strangely at her. Maria is smiling widely at each member. “MBC has released a teaser for our vacation that will air NEXT WEEK! Time surely go too fast, but this, this you have to see.”

“I have seen it,” Julia raises her hand and then points at Hannah, “I showed her it too.”

Maria’s shoulders are sinking and her smile disappears. “You ing saw the teaser without showing everyone else?! YA!” The leader bursts out but gets quiet when the door behind her is opened and she turns around, seeing Manager Lee peek inside.

“Shouting again are we?” he asks them in a soft voice – Manager Lee is definitely used to 5 Pieces – his eyes mostly on Maria as her voice was heard. “Please practice the next scene.”

5 Pieces are sitting in a room on Tuesday, spending another day working on the drama. Most of the day has been spent filming, while they now are during a break going through the next scenes. The ladies vacation will be filmed in a MBC program named A Part of Pieces, and today the teaser for the show came out as a really strange teaser. It is a different teaser than what you usually see as it is five different short teasers, just showing the members of 5 Pieces singing. Maria was singing on the street in Melbourne, singing to Christina Aguilera’s [Your Body] that she just had heard playing in a store she walked by when shopping; Carolina was sitting on a bench with her guitar, playing the guitar and singing her own song; Emelia was in her hotel room, singing Sweden’s Eurovision song [You] by Robin while looking through the different songs; Julia was playing around with her feet in the water and brightly singing a song by 5 Pieces; and Hannah was at the karaoke, singing 5 Pieces’ [Daze]. All of them look exactly how silly and crazy 5 Pieces can be at times – and according to comments online, it is a teaser that brings in excitement and more for this program. Fans are wondering how 5 Pieces are when they are just 1 Piece, how they will survive being away from each other and also to see some culture differences and such. It will be fun to see the reactions next week over the first episode.

“Could someone tell the director that I’m not actually that stupid?” Carolina asks in Korean when they are packing their things to go film again. “The lines I get at times make me feel more stupid than funny…”

“You are more stupid than funny,” Emelia comments with a smirk for herself.

“That is NOT true!”

“So true-uh,” Emelia teases and Carolina throws a pen towards her, shocking not just Emelia but Hannah looks at them with open too. “You actually … threw something at me? Carolina?”

“Yes, I did.” Carolina sounds proud over herself and upset she leaves the room.

Emelia looks at Hannah, as the youngest was the only one stopping to look surprised. “She threw a pen at me…” Emelia can’t believe it. Hannah shrugs her shoulders.

“You called her stupid,” the youngest explains while they are heading out the room too.

“Yeah, but I thought she knew that… It’s not the first time I have said it to her.”

Truth is that Carolina isn’t stupid, she is just very ignorant and can’t sense the reality in everything. And her image is that she isn’t the smartest among the ladies, so her character isn’t the smartest either. But hey, everyone have their good and bad moments. When they come to the scene they will film, Hannah goes up to Carolina to give her a hug.

“I like your character, Carolina,” the youngest comforts her in a low voice for just her to hear. “Emelia is just upset she doesn’t get as many lines as you.”

At times, you just need to say what you know your friend need to hear. Hannah has her own moments when she knows what upset a friend, and she wants to make it better; like now when comforting Carolina. Carolina smiles and hugs her back, saying Emelia is jealous, though Hannah doesn’t respond on that as she isn’t really a liar. Emelia could be upset to not get as many lines as Carolina, but being jealous is a little too much, Hannah thinks. Either way, Hannah thinks it is thanks to her that Carolina isn’t upset anymore for what Emelia earlier said; their filming goes better than if Carolina would have been upset.

Filming a drama with 5 Pieces is really fun. The staff and cast all have fun with them too. The scenes are cool but with these fun comments from time to time, and it is scenes showing 5 Pieces’ friendship. It is a lot of skin-ship, by linking arms or hugging and they laugh a lot and it is just a party to film with each other. Hannah has filmed three dramas before, and each one was completely different from each other. Though the filming last year was really fun with Honggi and the others, this time it isn’t even as if they are filming a drama, just a bunch of old friends fooling around.

 

When they almost are done with the day’s schedule in the evening, Manager Lee comes up to Hannah with her cell phone showed to her face. She is receiving a phone call from Kyung Ho. Manager Lee had taken her cell phone earlier when she was texting Jonghyun while they were practicing a scene, but even her manager knows to not avoid a call from her little Korean brother.

“Kyung Ho?” Hannah answers, closing her eyes when Mi Young wants to fix her make-up.

“Who am I talking to?”

Hannah opens her eyes, not caring that Mi Young almost pokes the pen in her eye. It’s a woman’s voice. She looks at her cell phone, seeing Kyung Ho’s name and number on the display. It makes her freak out; has something happened to him? Is he back at the hospital?

“This is Hannah... Who are you?” her voice comes out shaky and Mi Young lowers her hands, looking at Hannah who has gotten a blank face-expression, no, she looks terrified. Is she even breathing?

“I’m Kyung Ho’s mother. Why does my son have your cell phone number? Is he with you now too?”

Her first reaction is – O M G, his mother is talking to her – but her second reaction is – you don’t know where Kyung Ho is??????

“I’m a friend of his… And what do you mean if he is with me now…?”

“My son ran away earlier. I looked through his cell phone to figure out where he left, and I found your name and all the thousand of text messages the two of you have sent to each other. And I don’t know who you are and what you want with my son, but if he is with you now, I would want to talk to him.”

“What are you talking about? He just ran away? You don’t know where Kyung Ho is… I’m in Japan…” Hannah is freaking out. Where is Kyung Ho? Is he out alone in Seoul, on his own? He didn’t even bring his cell phone!

“So you don’t know where he is?”

“I don’t know where he is”

“I will talk to you another day then, this is not over,” his mother finishes saying before hanging up.

Hannah doesn’t know what she means and neither does she care. She stares up at Mi Young. “Kyung Ho ran away.”

“What?”

“WHAT?” Maria pops up too. “Kyung Ho ran away? What for?”

Hannah is staring out in nowhere, shrugging her shoulders. Why did he run away from home? He looks over her shoulder, out at nothing at all. “I have to go to Seoul,” she breathes out, and for the first time, they don’t hold on to her. Maria nods and leaves quickly to go get their managers, on the way also telling Emelia that Hannah is going to Seoul because Kyung Ho has left his home and is now missing.

“He is missing?” Julia comes up to Hannah. It is chaos. People are finding out what just happened and everyone asks Hannah what is going on.

“His mother called me, and … and she said,” Hannah doesn’t know what she is saying. Her mind is a mess. What if something happened to him?

“Hannah,” Manager Lee comes up to them. “You have one scene left, finish that and then we will leave, okay?”

She pouts at him with teary eyes. She can’t act now! She has to find Kyung Ho! Manager Lee doesn’t know what to do with that face.

“I will see what flight we can take, but you must finish the schedule first. Ladies, all of you,” he tells them and Julia nods next to Hannah, putting an arm around her.

“We can pull it off,” Julia is confident.

Within minutes, the directors and staff and everyone are aware of the situation and they are kind to Hannah when she makes mistakes during the final filming of the day. Manager Lee gets two flight tickets to Korea without any problem during that time; he went online and then called the airport and it was done; only agreeing to let him and Hannah go. Hannah has even texted Jonghyun to ask if Kyung Ho had contacted him, but no.

“Hannah,” Manager Lee puts his hand up to stop her when she is on her way to leave, still spacing out, “you have to change clothes first.”

She looks down at the school uniform she is wearing, and she turns around to go change in silence. She is worried; she has no idea of what to do other than worry. Hannah is like a zombie when they are leaving, just following the manager to the car and sitting there, spacing out. The other ladies are worried too when seeing Hannah leave first.

Manager Lee has never seen Hannah so quiet. To the airport she doesn’t speak a single word, not asking him about the time or when they will arrive in Seoul like she always asks him. Because of the time, Manager Lee reminds Hannah to take her pill that she has to take in the morning and evening, so when they are at the plane he expects her to fall asleep, but Hannah is too tensed and worried to relax so she is just staring around with big eyes.

 

They arrive in Seoul around 11PM and it is dark outside. Seoul is shining up the streets with lamps every half meter, and on the way to the apartment, Hannah is staring out the window in hope to catch a lonely boy. Manager Lee has asked her where they will look for Kyung Ho, but Hannah has no idea. She just wants to find him, to know he is alright, but Seoul is big and she has no idea of where to start. They are going to the apartment for Hannah to get a contact number to Kyung Ho’s teacher and the hospital; she has no idea of what his mother is doing, if she has contacted them already or what is happening, all Hannah cares about is to know Kyung Ho is safe.

They are just outside the apartment; Manager Lee is trying to find a spot to park on the side of the road.

“OPPA!” Hannah shouts so loudly all of a sudden that the manager almost looses control of the car, but it is good they were driving so slowly. She grabs his arm, shouts for him to stop and before the car actually stops, Hannah has opened the door and she runs out. Manager Lee has taken a foot on the break, calling out her name, looks at the back when she hurries around the car and he turns around in his seat when she runs over the street to the apartment building. Then he sees what Hannah had seen.

Sitting by the door to the apartment building is a young boy, hugging his legs and covering himself under his jacket. Over the car hitting the breaks he looks up, seeing Hannah run up to him.

“ARE YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR MIND?!” Hannah screams at the boys and she falls down on her knees to hug him tightly, crying to see that he is alright, crying because he is sitting alone in the dark. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF HOW WORRIED I HAVE BEEN?!”

She leans back to put his face in her hands, seeing that he is crying over old tears.

“I’m sorry!” he cries and puts his tiny arms around her neck to hug her. “I panicked… A woman called to my house, asking my parents if I was interested in having a manager… They know everything, Hannah; they know what I’m doing.”

“And you run away?! And you run HERE?!” Her voice is too light. “You knew I was in Tokyo, Kyung Ho! You’re so stupid. And you didn’t bring your phone with you! Your mother called me and I didn’t know what happened!!”

She gets quiet now when she has gotten that out of her, and to know he is safe she just breathes out while hugging him. It has been more than four hours since his mother called her, and it has been four horrible, absolutely terrible hours for her mind.

Manager Lee has gotten out of the car, standing a meter away from them with a smile at first. This was easy, he thinks, breathing out. Much easier than what he had worried for – Seoul is not a playground where you look for a lost child – and out of the enormous city, Kyung Ho happens to be outside the apartment, out of all places.

“Are you hungry?” Hannah whispers to Kyung Ho, getting out of the hug to see him nod. She smiles softly at him, both of them have cried. “Let’s go see if we can find something to eat.”

She gets up, takes his hand and goes inside the apartment building, Manager Lee going with them while shaking his head. The flight back to Tokyo doesn’t leave until eight in the morning, so they do have the time. Kyung Ho is quiet now, because Hannah is quiet. She is angry at him; she says in the elevator while hugging him that she is happy nothing happened to him, but he knows she is angry at him. He also knows that she went all the way from Tokyo to Seoul, without knowing anything else than that he was missing.

When Kyung Ho is sitting by the kitchen table in the living-room he is watching Hannah warm up food in the kitchen. She has texted both Jonghyun and her members to say the lost boy is found, but she keeps glancing over at Kyung Ho with a face-expression he isn’t sure means she is angry or sad. Manager Lee is lying in the sofa, closing his eyes for a while.

“I’m taking you home after we have eaten,” Hannah says in a low voice when she comes with a place to Kyung Ho and one for herself.

“Can’t I sleep here tonight?” he pouts, his eyes not leaving the food when he starts to eat.

“No. Your parents are worried, so I’m taking you home,” she answers when sitting down to eat too.

Kyung Ho keeps pouting and he mutters that they aren’t worried about him, which makes Hannah glare at him.

“Your parents love you, Kyung Ho, don’t think anything else.”

“You left your parents… why can’t I do the same? I could live with you,” Kyung Ho says in a mutter but still looks up at her, hoping she will agree to let him live with her. Hannah, on the other hand, just looks angry at him.

“I was 15 years old, Kyung Ho; you are half that age. And I had four reliable friends next to me the whole time. You ran away without anyone knowing anything. Do you have any idea of how stupid that is? All of us have worried like crazy for you, your parents too! I’m sending you home, so eat up.”

Kyung Ho keeps eating, looking like he is going to cry. “Tomorrow is the worst birthday ever,” he mutters for himself. She keeps glancing at him, seeing his eyes getting teary and he lowers his head even more. She sighs.

“You can’t compare yourself to me, Kyung Ho. And you can never, never, do something like this again, is that understood? Maybe I won’t be able to come home next time, or what if something happens to you?” Hannah tells him in her worried voice, looking at him nodding with his chin at his chest. “Do you remember what we promised each other at the hospital?”

He nods again, looking guilty and quietly crying, not eating anymore.

“Don’t break me that promise, Kyung Ho.”

“I won’t.”

“Then you won’t do something like this every again, okay?”

He nods again, wiping his tears while keeping his head down. “I won’t do it again. I’m sorry,” he mumbles. Hannah sighs again and leaves her seat to go give him a hug. Kyung Ho hugs her back right away, crying anew. He simply panicked when his mother brought up about a stranger calling and accusing her son of being an actor, and Kyung Ho panicked and ran away without any thoughts at all but to get away from it. His parents know nothing, until today.

 

“What woman called you?” Hannah is curious to know when they are in the car, heading to Kyung Ho’s home.

Kyung Ho shrugs his shoulders. “Mom said the woman had seen me in the drama and had asked the producer of the drama to get my number… and my teacher had given her the number to my house.”

“She didn’t say who she works for?” Manager Lee wonders.

Again the boy shrugs his shoulders and Hannah puts her head on the side, looking at her friend. “Would you want a manager?”

“A manager?”

“Do you want to be signed in a company? To get rid of your teacher and get your own manager, to become an actor for real?” Hannah looks like she has come up to something. “This woman called you for a reason, and you tell me that you want to be an actor like Lee Minho. If one company sets their eyes on you, more might do the same.”

Kyung Ho is looking up at her with open, and slowly he starts to smile. “You mean there is a company that wants to sign me?!”

Manager Lee can’t hide his laugh behind the steering wheel. Those two in the back are surely pure, and it is fun how Kyung Ho sounds like he is definitely not on his way to explain his past three years to his parents. It’s good that he has gotten other things on his mind, because it doesn’t take all too long before they reach the house. Manager Lee looks at the back.

“You want me to stay here?” he asks Hannah.

She looks down at Kyung Ho, who suddenly has gotten scared and nervous, looking at the luxury house he lives in. Hannah then nods to her manager, and tells Kyung Ho that they should go. He takes her hand when she has closed the car door after them. He holds her hand tightly when they walk up to the front door, and they are still a few meters away from it when the door is opened in front of them and a Korean man is standing there.

“Kyung Ho.” His voice is low and strict, and when he looks at Hannah he doesn’t look pleased at all. “And you must be Hannah.”

Hannah is terrified on the inside, because she has known Kyung Ho for three years already, but has never been introduced to his parents. She looks calm though, and she got tired in the car from the pill she took before the flight earlier. It shows she has relaxed. Now, she isn’t relaxed even if she looks to be. Hannah reaches out her hand.

“It is not the right time to introduce myself to you, but under these circumstances I got no other choice, sir,” Hannah says politely when shaking his hand. He raises his chin over her polite Korean. “My name is Hannah; I am a friend of your son.”

He purses his lips by her introduction, not showing if it is good or bad but only that he probably did not expect it. He steps aside to let them both in, saying that he and his wife wants to talk to them both. The hall is long, high and narrow, but everything in the house is expensive. A stair goes up to the left while the hall they walk through leads to a spacious living-room. Two long sofas are in the middle, facing each other with a low table in between and sitting in one sofa is a thin older woman, still wearing her working suit and she looks really stiff when standing up. Kyung Ho apologizes to her, but he doesn’t go up to hug her. Both of his parents take notice of the boy holding on to Hannah’s hand, and she doesn’t take it away because even if his parents’ maybe doesn’t like it, Hannah thinks it wouldn’t help Kyung Ho if she did that. His father shows them to sit down in one sofa, and the parents sits down on the other one. Hannah has never been here; Kyung Ho has showed pictures and he has drawn the house for her, and she has seen pictures of his parents but never met them either. It feels stiff in here, and Hannah sits with her knees tightly next to each other hand hands in her lap, still having Kyung Ho’s hand in hers even after sitting down. She holds it lightly so he can take it away when he wants.

“I am disappointed at you, Kyung Ho,” his mother starts off, and Hannah feels how she takes a secure breath over how cold she is. “I tried to have a mature talk with you, and you just walked away from me. And hours later, you return with this woman?” Those strict eyes are turned to Hannah. “And who are you to my son if I may ask? Have you done something to him?”

Hannah looks offended. “Excuse me?” she asks. “I have been your son’s friend for the past three years-”

“So you are the one putting him in all this silly ideas of acting?” his father opens his mouth, cutting her off. Hannah closes at his words and his mother gives a sound.

“Yes, dear, we know who you are. You and your friends from Sweden,” his mother says with a grimace, “my son has albums and pictures in his room of 5 Pieces.”

They are going on her nerves. Who are these two to treat a stranger like this? Their son has been missing for hours and they don’t even hug him or say they have been worried! No wonder Kyung Ho is sitting quiet next to her.

“Don’t say you know who I am.” Her voice is cold and she sees how surprised the parents are over Hannah’s politeness but still, she doesn’t look like she wants to be polite. “I took the first flight from Tokyo to make sure Kyung Ho is alright the moment you had called me. I found him sitting outside my apartment in fear to face his own parents, and you think you can judge me? What have you been doing while your son has been out on the street? You wouldn’t even know where to go look, did you?”

“How dare you!”

“I dare because I love this boy as if he was my own brother,” Hannah is fast to answer and Kyung Ho looks up at her with big eyes. She is standing up to his parents.

“And you don’t think we love him too? He is OUR son!”

“Why would you not love him?” Hannah’s voice has gotten light again but it isn’t loud. “You two have a perfect son. He has top grades in not just his class but in his school too; he is strong because he has spent half his life in a hospital without any friends; and he is admirable because he is 8 years old but knows what he wants in life and he fights to get it. I would never say you don’t love your son, or that I care for him more, but before you say I am the one at fault, maybe you should listen to Kyung Ho for once?”

“Our son had no thoughts about acting before you came,” his mother answers, “and there is no reason for a foreigner like you to pretend you know anything about our son and our country. You aren’t even Korean.”

Hannah agrees it might be true. “Yes, I’m a foreigner and I’m definitely not Korean. I don’t know much about Korea; I have lived here for five years but I don’t understand everything, true – But I do speak the same language as Kyung Ho, and I have listened to him for the past three years probably more than you have for the past nine years he has been alive. Maybe I know more about him than you, because even if I tell you to listen to him, you give him no space to open his mouth.”

“Huh!” she sounds offended but Hannah doesn’t care. Hannah hugs Kyung Ho’s hand but he shakes his head at her, whispering that she should tell them instead. “Kyung Ho, talk to us.”

“I’m here,” Hannah whispers to him, “tell them what you want to say.”

They haven’t prepared anything to say, other than explain everything that has happened for the past two years – Kyung Ho’s acting. He looks like he wants to cry again when glancing at his parents, digging his fingers in Hannah’s hand when gathering the strength. Hannah said he was smart, she said that he was strong and admirable. Those words makes him feel strong, to know that she believes in him. Hannah, a friend he has known for three years, an older sister he always can lean on. Now too, she is sitting here with him, facing his worst nightmare together.

“I want to act,” Kyung Ho says with scared eyes glancing from his mother to his father. He lowers his eyes to be able to talk “I want to act and I have been acting and it is the best thing I have ever done. Hannah has nothing to do with it; she has just helped me to find the auditions and give me advice.”

“Why do you want to act?!” his father can’t understand.

Kyung Ho looks up at Hannah, his lip trembling. He looks down at his hands. “Because I’m good at it,” he answers in a low voice, “I’m good and it is fun and they think I’m good too.”

“But there are so many other things you are good at. And this woman-”

“This woman is my best friend,” Kyung Ho interrupts with a pout. “Mom, dad – she came to Seoul in the middle of the night for me! What more can you ask from a best friend? Without Hannah … I wouldn’t… I would still be at the hospital.”

Hannah wants to interrupt him, tell him that he wouldn’t be at the hospital, but maybe she would ruin his time to talk to his parents; and they seem to actually be listening. Hannah looks less confident now when seeing how his father looks at Hannah.

“Then where do you come in in all of this?” he asks, waving his hand. “Hm? You just happened to be there when my son wanted to start acting?”

“Hannah was in the hospital with me,” Kyung Ho answers. “Three years ago, she was in a car-accident. I saved her.”

“Kyung Ho, you didn’t save her,” his mother sighs.

“He helped me,” Hannah tells them quickly,, knowing that Kyung Ho need this and that his parents doesn’t take his words as seriously as they will if she told them. “You should have seen him. He was reading to me every day when I was in a coma; he was doing his homework, talking to me. The first voice I recognized when I woke up belonged to a boy I had never seen in my life, but his voice, I had heard every day at the hospital. He was– He is amazing, your son. And what did I do when he wanted to act? I told him I will help him if he wanted me to, and I have done my best to help, listen and support him as much as I can. If you want to know, I have never let my name or anyone I know help him to get a role. Kyung Ho has gotten where he is on his own.”

She is sleepy. It’s in the middle of the night and she wants to sleep, but she has to make his parents know that this is his dream – not something she has made him do. They look sceptical.

 

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Headline 27th: Korea’s Best Book Of The Week Number 3 Is ‘Joe – Under Seoul’s Streets’

Headline 27th: (Sweden) Best 5 Books Of May, Number 5 Is ‘Joe – Under Seoul’s Streets’

 

Headline 28th: MBC Airs ‘A Part Of Pieces’ Singing Teaser With 5 Pieces!

 

Headline 29th: SM Entertainment Reveals Julia’s Solo Debut Teaser!

Headline 29th: 5 Pieces’ Julia To Make Solo Debut 8th June On Music Core!

Headline 29th: 5 Pieces’ 8-Episode Vacation A Part Of Pieces Starts Airing On June 4

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I like Kyung Ho... 5 Pieces' little brother ^^,

 

X. devonalias